SPUC director deeply troubled by Catholic university’s support for destructive research

28 January 2003

SPUC director deeply troubled by Catholic university’s support for destructive research Westminster, 28 January 2003--John Smeaton, national director of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), has said that he is "deeply troubled" by reports that the Catholic university of Louvain supports destructive stem cell research. The Catholic university of Louvain in Belgium, which was founded by a papal bull in 1425, features a French-language document on its website asserting that parents can "in an ethical spirit of solidarity" donate their surplus IVF embryos to research. The document even appears to condone so-called therapeutic cloning. Mr Smeaton said: "I shall be writing urgently to the Belgian bishops and to the Vatican about the matter. The Catholic Church is unequivocally opposed to any destructive research on human embryos, as well as to IVF, on the basis that all human beings from the moment of conception/fertilisation have a fundamental dignity by virtue of their Creator."